Are the wikis for light_countershading and dark_countershading correct? They are pretty recent and before them I was using these tags to denote the value/saturation of a countershading even if they were from a different color of the main body.

It also seems a bit redundant to use it that way when countershading refers to: A lighter belly / front region than the rest of the body. Same goes for the definition that was written on dark_countershading, it's basically reverse_countershading.

Did I misunderstood something? Hm~

I'm not seeing a difference either. Whoever wrote the wikis knew of reverse_countershading though, since they mention it, so I don't know what the intended difference is.

I feel like it would be better to just alias dark_countershading to reverse_countershading. I guess you could technically have a dark shade of countershading that is still lighter than the rest of the body, and therefore not reverse countershading, but… meh. I don’t see the point in keeping any such distinction.

And while we’re at it, let’s alias light_countershading to countershading. It’s almost always light, and hardly anyone uses that tag as it is.

Edit: I read the wikis again, and it looks like the intended difference was that light and dark countershade tags are for when the countershading is the same color as the rest of the body, but a different shade, as opposed to the countershading being of a different color entirely. I think I just misunderstood it the first time I read it. That might be preferable to tagging the color of the countershading whenever it’s the same as the rest of the body. But in that case, dark_countershading should probably imply reverse_countershading.

That also raises the question of what to do about brown/tan or red/pink… we treat them like two different colors for tagging purposes, but tan is nothing more than a light shade of brown, as pink is just a lighter shade of red.

I don't use those countershading tags.
IMO, you're better off tagging what body part is being countershaded.

The body (for 2ndary color or in general)
The butt
The legs
The arms
The Face (I never really use this)
The Feet (I use excessively)

Light and dark don't really matter when there are all the colors of the rainbow. So just label what body part.

On second thought, I think I may be in favor of keeping these light/dark tags and using them instead of color tags for most cases. Countershading is usually just a lighter (or occasionally darker) shade of the character’s base color anyway. Makes more sense than tagging, say, ‘blue_body’ and ‘blue_countershading’ for the same character, which says nothing about whether the countershade color is the lighter or the darker blue. I’d rather reserve the color countershading tags for when the countershading is actually a different color entirely, such as blue countershading on a red body.

scaliespe said:
That also raises the question of what to do about brown/tan or red/pink… we treat them like two different colors for tagging purposes, but tan is nothing more than a light shade of brown, as pink is just a lighter shade of red.

Please just let these tags be. (;⠀⠀--⠀⠀⠀;
Brown is also a darker shade of orange, red or yellow sometimes. There's some shades that should be fine to keep, it's already daunting to tag some shades of body sometimes. I still cry with the alias of cyan tags. ;⠀⠀-⠀;)

scaliespe said:
On second thought, I think I may be in favor of keeping these light/dark tags and using them instead of color tags for most cases. Countershading is usually just a lighter (or occasionally darker) shade of the character’s base color anyway. Makes more sense than tagging, say, ‘blue_body’ and ‘blue_countershading’ for the same character, which says nothing about whether the countershade color is the lighter or the darker blue. I’d rather reserve the color countershading tags for when the countershading is actually a different color entirely, such as blue countershading on a red body.

I'm not entirely sure what you meant with: "...which says nothing about whether the countershade color is the lighter or the darker blue." Countershading is a lighter region from the rest of the body, while Reverse_Countershading is a darker region from the rest of the body.

But from a "search perspective"(not sure of the right term) I think that the light/dark countershading tags would make it easier for people to look for characters with countershading that it's just a different shade of the main body.

sieghelm_lockayer said:
Please just let these tags be. (;⠀⠀--⠀⠀⠀;
Brown is also a darker shade of orange, red or yellow sometimes. There's some shades that should be fine to keep, it's already daunting to tag some shades of body sometimes. I still cry with the alias of cyan tags. ;⠀⠀-⠀;)

Yeah, I'm not asking to get rid of them. It just poses a question regarding tagging light/dark. I actually would not mind to have cyan and some other intermediate color tags back, but that's a conversation for another thread.

I'm not entirely sure what you meant with: "...which says nothing about whether the countershade color is the lighter or the darker blue." Countershading is a lighter region from the rest of the body, while Reverse_Countershading is a darker region from the rest of the body.

That is exactly what I meant, but people often don't tag reverse_countershading even when applicable. But dark_countershading could imply reverse_countershading, which would help.